half and half
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Naraku hasn't killed Kohaku yet and they're both realizing why... (Note: Naraku Kohaku pairing)


Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, but I do own the 'song' at the beginning of the story.  
  
There was once a woman who sang a song to a child who was lying on a blanket over a small hill. Under the shade of the trees, the baby slept.   
  
The woman knelt by a river and washed her clothes along with the child's. It wasn't clear if she was alone on purpose if she had been exiled, but there she washed with a smile. She sang so loudly and proudly, but her words betrayed her strife.  
  
"Nakanaide, nakanaide,  
  
tsuki wo shinjitemasu, demo   
  
watashi no kokoro wa usotsuki kara...  
  
Utau, utau...  
  
Dare mo inai koe  
  
Mimi ni sasayaite  
  
Chi wo ochita.  
  
Watashi no kotoba  
  
Fukai, fukai omoi.  
  
Kore dake,  
  
Mimi wo sumaseba...  
  
'ikiteru' to iu  
  
kimi ni."  
  
Half and half.  
  
by miyamoto yui  
  
It made no sense at all.   
  
The child had no function whatsoever at this time. She couldn't understand why the hell he wanted to keep the brat in check when all he did was defy their tyrant's orders. The least the boy could do was let himself get killed by anyone, or maybe by his own hands.   
  
"Kagura." The baboon-skinned Naraku said her name once and it already sent a chill down her made-up spine.  
  
Her squinted eyes shifted from Kohaku to Naraku himself. She pulled on her kimono sleeve as she knelt at the doorway, wanting not to step inside out of disgust for Naraku. Yet, because of her predicament, she had no choice but to listen to his orders and reprimands.  
  
But deep inside, she resented him for keeping her heart, and for keeping Kohaku-  
  
"I'm giving you another chance, so go and find Inuyasha again. Track him and report back," the tyrant Naraku ordered as he kept his stance while not even looking at her. He felt that she didn't even deserve that at this moment.  
  
With clenched teeth, she bowed. "As you wish."  
  
Holding her kimono with one hand clenched in her anger, she immediately left. As soon as she closed the door behind her, she let go of her kimono with a slightly violent throw. Her eyes narrowed more as she walked out with an angry air about her.  
  
Kagura could never figure Naraku out, but there was something that had bothered her for quite sometime now.   
  
"Wasn't Naraku more harsh today?" she thought to herself as she walked onward. "Impossible."  
  
Usually, he would lift her chin and throw it away in the blink of an eye. Then, she would fall to the ground with a scowl on her face. But now, he didn't even look at her.  
  
Was it because Kohaku had gotten a blemish on his face from the last encounter with Inuyasha's group and was one step closer to remembering? How impossible could that be?   
  
It was proposterous! The great Naraku getting flustered over a useless human corpse who was kept alive by the very thing Naraku needed the most now.  
  
"He was willing to remember, wasn't he?" she thought to herself as she rubbed her chin. Kagura thought of the face Kohaku made when he last looked at his sister Sango's face. All that she could conclude was that Kohaku was extremely troubled, but she couldn't read if it was all because of Sango or Naraku.  
  
She whispered to herself, "And somehow, that Naraku doesn't want him to."  
  
It wasn't an unusual thing for her to think if maybe Naraku and Kohaku's wishes were somewhat intertwined in a way. For someone who wanted to forget his past and made his mind a blank slate, his heart was still intact. And then there was someone whose heart was so barren except for an obsession over one woman, but was as poisoned in the mind as any demon that went on berserk mode.  
  
Were they just complementing one another? Weren't they?  
  
It made perfect sense...  
  
...but could logic ever fall into Naraku's hands so easily?  
  
If anything, everything had to be contorted, twisted, and vomited in order for it to make any logical sense within his head after all.  
  
Kagura lifted a feather and flew away into the air in search of Inuyasha with her mixed thoughts of freedom from Naraku.   
  
Without minding her own thoughts or her mouth, she clearly said to herself, "In that sense, Kohaku may be freer than he realizes."  
  
Because he could read her thoughts, Naraku's eyes narrowed as he let out a calculated sigh in front of the silent Kohaku who now knelt before him. Naraku's eyes were focused on Kagura leaving on her mission, but when she left, he relaxed a bit, for it was only Kohaku around him.  
  
"Leave," he said to the youkai around him. "I will call you later, so just stay around the entrance."  
  
As soon as they had closed the door behind them, his eyes focused purely on Kohaku, whose blank eyes stared at the ground. His head was bent as he waited for Naraku to say something.  
  
Naraku took off his baboon pelt and sat cross-legged in his place. He stared at Kohaku with his clear eyes, almost wanting to pull his hair to make Kohaku from turning away.  
  
"You always cower at this part, Kohaku," Naraku chuckled evilly as he saw Kohaku slightly twitch.  
  
"Because you keep me alive," Kohaku quietly answered aloud since there was no one around. "You always keep me _alive_..."  
  
He couldn't understand why Naraku was so sadistic to keep him alive when he knew that some part of him was already dead within. The jewel on his back was proof of that.  
  
"Do you really think I would let you die?" Naraku said with a raised eyebrow. As if reading Kohaku's actions, he lightly touched the young boy's back, feeling the presence of the jewel within him.  
  
Kohaku's eyes closed a bit at the touch, but he wouldn't show that he was weak by it.  
  
"I believe you'll keep me alive so that I'll remember sometime." Kohaku's mouth grimaced at his own answer. He knew Naraku was that sadistic, but he never comprehended why Naraku took a special liking to him.  
  
"Because it is harder for you that way," Naraku nodded his head while answering, "You are a smart one, Kohaku. But..."  
  
With his fingers taking a hold of Kohaku's chin, he lifted it up to look straight into Kohaku's tortured eyes.  
  
They were remembering, even for a moment. The fear wasn't out of his failure towards Naraku's orders, but that the memories were creeping like maggots coming to hungrily eat dead flesh.  
  
It was slowly killing him so softly inside.  
  
"You're remembering..." Naraku thought to himself in disdain as he analyzed these eyes full of uncertainty and alarm.  
  
Naraku loved it.   
  
It gave him such a rush to see someone so tortured that he was so elated and he continued to gaze at this beautiful sight. There was nothing so marvelous as to see someone so scared and you controlled whether they lived or died.  
  
Except, maybe that was why he couldn't bear killing Kohaku.  
  
Kohaku was his toy and he loved the look of horror in his eyes...  
  
Kohaku looked away as he slightly winced in pain. Naraku finished his question, "...do you want to remember?"  
  
It wasn't as manipulative a question as anyone might have believed. He was freely asking Kohaku of his own free will.  
  
It was his only link to him anyway.  
  
But within the boy's eyes, the woman's face wouldn't go away.  
  
Kohaku continued to look away from Naraku in shame, but that persistent beauty and warmth was overcoming him. And with it, there was something creeping to remind him of something terrible.  
  
"No...no, I don't want to..." Kohaku pleaded with tears almost about to spill from the approaching migraine and the burdened heart he was carrying deep inside.  
  
"Look at me," Naraku ordered harshly and Kohaku slowly looked back into the hanyou's face.   
  
"I thought so," Naraku said in satisfaction while still holding onto Kohaku's chin.  
  
At that moment, Kohaku grabbed onto Naraku's collar and leaned closer to him in desparation. With firm conviction, the young boy commanded softly, "Make my mind blank again. I don't want to remember."  
  
"For now..." Kohaku whispered inside of his tainted heart.  
  
Naraku's eyes narrowed as he cleared his throat at the brashness. Someone was telling _him_ what to do?  
  
But as he looked at those tortured eyes, he smirked.  
  
His hand not only went over Kohaku's head, but he actually touched it. When he let go, he pulled Kohaku's blank face forward, even closer towards his. So much so, their noses were touching and he could feel Kohaku's breathing down on his collar.  
  
Then, he pulled away, shaking his head in disgust.  
  
"Almost kissing a child."  
  
But he still held Kohaku's chin. And his hand slipped down his shoulders as he wrapped his arms around Kohaku, pulling him into an embrace.  
  
"So cold..." Kohaku monotonously commented, though his mind was being controlled.  
  
Why did those tortured eyes make him so weak? Why were they so beautiful to him?  
  
Naraku could never understand why he couldn't kill Kohaku either, and maybe that's why Kagura, who was a part of him, was just as perplexed by this.  
  
"But humans never start out that way, even if the evil and good run through their veins. Even if they have the heart of a thief, they still choose what they want and need," Naraku thought to himself.  
  
He hated Onigumo because traces of him still lingered even after he had been ejected from his body.  
  
The eyes...  
  
He now remembered.  
  
They reminded him of a vague memory of a woman.  
  
That awful woman named Kikyou.  
  
Many years ago, Onigumo had stolen and killed without a second thought. But deep within the recesses of his mind, he was reminded of a woman who took care of him when he was a child. She was someone who couldn't distinguish between humans and youkai. Being a child of humans who were thought to be non-human for all the horrible acts they had committed, the woman had taken the child as her own. Out of pity, the prostitute took care of him even though she had been exiled for her charity.  
  
And then, there was a beautiful miko who did the same thing once he became so decrepit after following his blood's call. Her indifference in emotion and actions to his status made her so attractive because they paralleled that woman by the river.  
  
It was funny that both woman sang the same song about living, yet were not able to fully enjoy.   
  
Whether her similarity to that woman or a purer reflection of himself, the only thing he wanted to see in the end was Kikyou.  
  
That was why Onigumo did everything to have her, even to sell his soul.  
  
And now, Naraku looked down at Kohaku, who had fallen asleep inside of his arms out of exhaustion.  
  
Tearing himself apart within his head with self-hatred, he was falling into the same pattern as his predecessor...  
  
Kohaku and he were the same.  
  
Only Kohaku knew:  
  
The pain of remembering,   
  
the finality of death,   
  
the numbness that encroached one's soul due to self-imposed disintegration.  
  
With almost a gentle look in his eyes, he said to himself, "Yes, only this child knows."  
  
He touched Kohaku's cheek and bent down closer and closer.  
  
As always, Naraku knew what this meant. It was the same as always: Kohaku wouldn't remember.  
  
And he would let him leave with no recollection of his twisted affection.  
  
With a smirk on his face, he whispered, "You hateful child."  
  
But, Kohaku was slightly awake as he opened his eyes to find Naraku so close to him. Even though he couldn't explain it and even though he couldn't truly understand it, he knew why Naraku was keeping him alive.  
  
He also admitted to himself why he wanted to stay alive while Naraku watched his every move so closely. Why he wanted to remain blank slated for a little bit longer beside him...  
  
Naraku, who should have been feared especially since he was a powerful youka, didn't scare him. And no matter how many times he had insulted him with his mouth, Naraku never treated him as badly as they made it seem to the public.   
  
Age nor wisdom was in his way within Naraku's severe eyes.  
  
He wasn't an equal, and yet he was preferred above everyone (sometimes even beyond Kikyou).  
  
The devil then kissed him...  
  
...and the human's eyes softened to close again...  
  
In his half dream, Kohaku's hand wrapped around Naraku's neck,   
  
half-strangling to kill him;  
  
half pulling him closer,  
  
consciously wanting not to fall out of favor.  
  
Owari.  
  
--  
  
Author's note: Yes, I understand that this is a pretty fu---- up pairing, but hey, I had to write it. I don't know why, but it suddenly came into my head and I was thinking of writing more Sango fics since I got inspiration for that too.  
  
I wrote this pairing because I felt that there was something that I probably missed, or there was something that wanted to be written. Actually, I wasn't convinced until I put the questions in my head (as I usually do, especially with Gravitation) and came up with this weird piece. I felt that they somehow complemented one another in a way. They both were destined to become something that was within their blood.  
  
To tell you the truth, I'm very satisfied with the fic...after pondering over and writing it for two hours. ^^;;;  
  
"Nakanaide, nakanaide,  
  
tsuki wo shinjitemasu, demo   
  
watashi no kokoro wa usotsuki kara...  
  
Don't cry, don't cry,  
  
I believe in the moon, but  
  
Because my heart is a liar...  
  
Utau, utau...  
  
Dare mo inai koe  
  
Mimi ni sasayaite  
  
Chi wo ochita.  
  
To sing, to sing...  
  
The voice of no one  
  
Whispered into my ear  
  
And blood fell.  
  
Watashi no kotoba  
  
Fukai, fukai omoi.  
  
Kore dake,  
  
Mimi wo sumaseba...  
  
My words  
  
Deep, deep mind.  
  
Only this,  
  
'ikiteru' to iu  
  
kimi ni."  
  
'To live' I say  
  
to you." 


End file.
